


The Female Of The Species

by Codeless



Category: Girl Genius, Jägermonsters - Fandom
Genre: Jagers, Original Character-centric, un-betaed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 09:41:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5329472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Codeless/pseuds/Codeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...Is more deadly than the male.<br/>Rudyard Kipling</p><p>Female jägers may be comparatively rare, but thanks to fandom, a fair amount do exist. This is the story of one of mine.<br/>Update schedules however happen to other people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Mina Sits On Chandeliers

**Author's Note:**

> This story would not exist without Adi and the Jägermonster Fanclub, who are shameless enablers of self indulgent OC fic.

Mina had always been light on her feet. Growing up in the castle meant being able to outrun it´s "jokes" was an important survival skill, even if it generally was not inclined to permanently harm her. Dead people are so much less amusing.

So she learned to jump just ahead of the Fun Sized Mobile Agony And Death Dispensers if she didn't want to be picked up like a kitten and flung from one to the other until they lost her. It was fun, but rather got in the way of getting anything done.

Mina did not remember the first time she met a jäger. She had been quite small and was being carried about in a sling by one of the maids. One of the guards had made faces at her to make her giggle. A few years later, he was chasing her out of laboratories, the one part of the castle she was not allowed in, which in her opinion was quite unfair. How was she to learn how to be a minion if she couldn't watch the professionals at work?

In the meantime, the chatelaine taught her how to read, so she stole any book that looked medical or useful and spent long evenings perched on the chandeliers in mortal combat with words like physiology and diaphragm. She was quite put out when she grew larger and had to move to the beams. On the other hand, growing meant finally being allowed to help the minions, even if she was still not allowed in the labs themselves.

Especially not after The Incident.

Mina had just been trying to get a better look at the experimental subject, it was so still she really should not be blamed for thinking it was dead! And it wasn't her fault it had grabbed her and she had to break some of it's fingers! The master could fix them, right? He hadn't even been upset.

Somehow, Mistress Mironescu was not impressed, and did her best to keep Mina too busy to get into more trouble. This resulted in Mina being bored out of her skull, and really not to blame for breaking things, knocking things over, and generally being useless at household tasks. It was not at all a way to avoid being asked to do them.


	2. In Which Mina Looses Her Temper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be gore, mind the tags.

Mina´s 15th birthday had been much anticipated, it meant she could finally apprentice as a medical minion. She was not trusted with any actual medical work at first, but she could watch, and wipe blood, and carry water. She could learn. Within a year she was allowed to do most non-surgical procedures, and considered old enough to be taken on campaign.

Mina was 16 years old when she met death for the first time. He stalked through the field hospital, reflected in eyes glazed from pain or fever. He was carried about as sickness and rot in the wounds. Many of her patients welcomed death, but Mina came to regard him as her enemy. She learned their names and held their hands until they were gone, because it was something that needed to be done, and then she went outside and cried, because that, too, was needed.

At the age of 18, Mina passed the examination and became a fully trained medical minion. By now she knew it was better not to ask her patients names. Better not to give a piece of herself away every time she failed and someone slipped away from her.

Some four years later she was leading a rescue party when the alarm bells sounded a new attack. Mina gave the order to retrieve the wounded and retreat to the city, but she knew they would never make it in time.

 _We are going to die._ Mina thought through the pounding of her own heart. _They are going to attack, and we will be here, Outside the strongest fortress in Europa, and we are going to die._ Somehow, she found this highly amusing in the bleak sort of way a woman facing execution might be amused by the hangman's choice of necktie. It wasn't until she noticed her patients bug-eyed stares that she realized she was smiling serenely, a thin layer of humor over the panic boiling underneath.

She had just finished finished sewing up the man before her (a bullet wound, he would live) When the shot blew his head off, past saving even by the best of sparks.

Something cracked, struck a spark, and ignited. The pounding of her heart got louder and louder until it filled her entire world, louder than the doom-bell itself. How dare they come in here and hurt Her patients? Who did they think they were? Someone grabbed her and suddenly everything was bright and shining and simple.

_My patients, My town, My duty. How Dare you try to harm those who are Mine!_

Mina swung the scalpel she was holding without thinking. Killing was easy, it turned out. She could hear herself laughing through a mouth full of blood.

 

And then there were only dead bodies, and soldiers in heterodyne colors. Mina barely had the time to make sure the rest of her patients were alive before someone led her away, perhaps under the impression that she would faint. She didn't. She just sat there, holding the glass of water spiked with vodka someone had handed her, staring at the dead. She had killed some of those men. Men who could have been her patients. She put down the cup and barely had enough time to find a reasonably secluded place before she was sick for the first time years.

_I am supposed to save lives, not end them._

_If I hadn't killed them, they would have killed my patients. And my duty is to them. my patients, my town, my people._

And so, when the Heterodyne offered her the jägerbräu, she accepted.


	3. In Which Mina Becomes A Jägermonster

Mina first watched the jägertroth from the rafters of the great hall when she was seven years old. The hall was packed with jägers. she wasn't sure how they decided who would come and who would stay away. Of course the generals were there, but rank did not seem to make a difference for any of the others. She watched the candidates chosen kneel to say their troth and accept the goblet, and then fall writhing in agony as their bodies remolded themselves.

Fifteen years later, Mina gave her reflection one last look. The black tunic and trousers weren't as good as a uniform, but with the sash she had fashioned from a shawl and her boots polished till they shone like glass, she thought she managed to at least cut a good figure.

Once again the hall was packed, but this time she did not get much chance to watch the crowd, only observe in passing as they lined up at the front facing the Master and the generals. One by one, the applicants knelt and swore the troth, drank the bräu, just as she remembered. And one by one they fell, until it was her turn. She knelt to accept the goblet. The master placed his hands around hers.

"Hy, Cosmina Kastelan, do swear mine loyalty unto the House of Heterodyne for life und death, for dis world und all others, for now and forever till vorld's end."

The pain was incredible. The Bräu tasted like molten fire, and seemed to kindle something red and hot and painfully, achingly familiar within her. Rage, but not the bloody fog she knew that foundered the mind and spoiled the aim. This was bright and clear as the sun, The incessant, insistent backdrop of her life finally given a purpose. She roared, and the world went black.

When she woke up the world had broken to pieces and been put together all sharp edges. The light stabbed into her skull, the world was a dull, head pounding, blanket of grating sounds and Someone Was Touching Her!  
"HY EM GOINK TO KEEL HYU!" Something snapped as she lunged off the bed and her wrists hurt as she was brought up short.  
"No hyu von´t. Hold schtill, hyu´ve broken hyu wrists."  
Her hands did indeed seem to be sticking off at odd angles. Large blue tinted and clawed hands appeared in her (oddly narrow) field of vision. Mina shook her hair out of her face to get a better look at their owner.  
"Ho...Hexcuse me General."  
General Gkika looked amused.  
"Et least hyu remembers hyu menners. Hyu COs won´t be zo nize vunce hyu iz op end valkink sveethot."  
The setting was barely more painful than the breaks themselves. The transformation sure gave one perspective on that.  
"Now try to get sum sleep. hyu aren't effen half done."  
The General went on the the next ... Jäger. She had taken the Bräu and lived, she was a jäger now. She decided to try and take stock.  
Feet: Present and accounted for, but felt like she had the world's worst case of ingrown toenails.  
Legs: Also there, no great change.  
Torso: Her back hurt horribly and there seemed to be something wrong with her spine. She tried to move whatever it was, and something made her blankets twitch. Further investigation showed this to be a stub of a tail, covered in oddly spiky fur, and something hard hidden in the tip. The Ingrown toenails proved to in fact be growing claws.  
Mina decided to postpone this utterly exhausting fact finding mission for more sleep.

When she next woke up good behaviour got her untied long enough to eat and drink, a surprising amount of both, though chewing was...interesting. Her tail had grown to be longer than her legs, and developed a stinger which promptly embedded itself in her palm.  
"Ho sheet!" Something transparent and faintly greenish dripped out of the hole.  
"Hold dot stinger over here vile eets still dripping." General Gkika did not look concerned, at least. She poured something stinging over her hand that smelled like...This was what vodka smelled like now?  
"Hyu feelink fonny?"  
Mina gave her a look. "Mine teeth are fallink out end growink bek een, hy voke op vit der vorlds vorst hedache, efferyting smells too moch und hy hef e TAIL! Iz dot vot hyu vanted to know General?"  
The General laughed. "Vell hyu dun seem to be effected. Goot. Schpit."  
"Vot?"  
"Hy needz to know iffen eets in hyu bite."  
Mina spat.

A few days later she was introduced to her mentor. She tried to rip his fangs out before he had managed more than a sentence. The relationship went downhill from there.

 

The first few days of being a jäger were exactly like being drunk. Mina felt invincible, free of all inhibitions, as if she could conquer the world single-handedly...if only she could stop tripping over her own feet.

The mentor she was assigned after that was less than helpful. The frequent accidents were humiliating enough without his constant needling criticisms. Sparing was even worse, her body it´s own worst enemy while his mockery chipped away at her tenuous control on a suddenly much more volatile temper. Nothing she did was right, anytime she managed hit him (which was anytime she was angry,) she was doing something wrong, she was stupid and a waste of his time.

"Vot der HELL iz der point ov dis hyu sheet eatink son ov e whore!?" If that bastard laughed at her one more time, she would see what color his spleen was on the inside!

"To teech hyu to control hyu temper, eediot civilian."

"VOT deed hyu chust call me?"

"Civilian. Hyu iz e sissy leedle civilian end if hyu iz verry locky hyu might be e jäger vunce hy em done vit hyu. For vun, hyu ken´t fight engry."

Something snapped inside her. It felt like the Bräu, golden white liquid rage turning everything sharp and crystal clear

"Vatch me." She launched herself at him and the sound of her fist in his teeth was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard. She didn't care when he flung her into a wall, she couldn't even remember getting back on her feet, all that mattered was killing the bastard.

 

Her coordination improved rapidly after that. Her temper did not.


	4. In Which Mina Meets Her Sergeant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for creating Sergeant Radovana goes to adiduck, as well as for much of her dialogue and for patiently correcting her characterization.

Mina suspected Cristian was as relieved as she was when she received her assignment for proper training. Neither bothered with goodbyes beyond a barely civil nod.  
The next day began with the sleeping hall the new jägers had so far shared in absolute chaos as they prepared to move to their new squads.  
Mina had been ordered to report to Sergeant Radovana, who turned out to be a stocky jäger who glowed faintly pink with an impressive array of needle like teeth. She leaned against a wall smoking until the last of the squad arrived, then put out her cigar and planted herself on front of everyone.  
"Hallo, hy em hyu new best friend. NOW LINE OP UND SCHOT OP!"  
She certainly had an impressive bellow. Most of the recruits obeyed almost automatically.  
Mina stayed where she was.  
"Vhy?"  
“Dot meens ve haf to be qviet.” Mina couldn't see who had spoken but the squad snickered and the red skinned blonde, Ilana? Ilenca? got her hat knocked off in passing as the sergeant sauntered over until she was standing in front of Mina. The rest of the squad stared.  
"……………Hyu iz gon be a pain in mine ass, izn’t hyu."  
Mina grinned. "Only if hyu´re into dot sort ov ting."  
No one had been speaking, but the silence that spread now was deafening. The sergeant narrowed her eyes at Mina.  
“…Ho, hyu vanna be der sergeant? Hokay, knock me out und take over. Enny ov hyu tink hyu ken do better, dot iz der arrangement."  
"Hokeh" Now this was familiar ground. Mina grabbed her collar, intending to slam her head into the stone enclosure, only to find herself suddenly airborne. The reunion with the ground knocked the breath out of her. To add insult to injury the sergeant plucked the hat off her head while she was still gasping for breath.  
 “Hyu get dis beck vhen hyu earn it”  
_Fuck hyu und efferytink hyu stend for._ Mina glared at her, then sat up and shook her head. Through the ringing in her ears she could hear the sergeant shouting.  
"ENNYVUN ELSE VANT TO BE DER SERGEANT?"  
_Jah, dot vould be me._ Out loud she said. "Hyu gotz to show me how hyu deed dot."  
The sergeant turned around, halfway between surprised and amused.  
“…Jah, pain in mine ass. HOKAY, LINE OP UND MEBBE LATER HY TROW HYU INTO A VALL UNTIL HYU LEARN HOW OR GIFF OP. MOVE IT.”  
Mina scrambled to her feet and took her place at the end of the line.  
"So, hyu iz een charge becawze hyur der meanest ting around, gotz eet. Vhy iz ve in e line?" The other recruits seemed to be trying to back away from her while remaining in place.  
"Becawze hy fuckink sed zo. Und becawze iffen hyu vant to mek hyu enemy sorreh dey iz facink hyu tventy or zo jägers in a line iz a goot vey to do eet. Now shot op."  
Mina shut up and longingly imagined breaking the woman's nose again.  
  
  
  
Within a few days Mina had come to the conclusion that she hated Sergeant Radovana. The woman seemed to derive most of her enjoyment from ordering them about. Her only saving grace was that she answered Minas questions rather than mocking her for asking, and Mina was not inclined to be gracious right at the moment.  
  
Training had been going well that day until Mitica decided the best way to distract the construct they were meant to kill was to break the gate and let it out into the city proper. While, admittedly, this got it away from the squad, it also meant they now had to catch and kill it before it mauled any irreplaceable civilians. Sarge was furious.  
"HYU! DE EEDIOT VHO THOUGHT EET VOS E GOOT HYDEA TO LET DIS TING OUT INTO DER TOWN!"  
Mina swallowed and stomped on Miticas foot, hard, (He deserved it,) then stood at attention, trying to keep her tail from quivering and her ears from flattening themselves into her hair.  
Hy em zo verry verry dead. "Dot´s me Sergeant."  
"..................hy haff eyes, Private. Go seet down."  
Sheet. Mina opened her mouth to try and find some reason it was her fault after all, but a glare told her the sergeant was not going to be convinced. She shut up and sat down while Sarge proceeded to rip Mitica a new one.  
“...Und vhile hyu try to find sometink to fill der empty space in hyu head, you ken get der ceeveelians out ov der vey! DER REST OF HYU KOM VIT ME!”  
Mina rose. “Sergeant? Hy´ll help Mitcia, getz pipple out ov der vey faster.”That got her an unreadable look.  
"...keed, ve need to talk about dis tendency hyu haff to tek on odder pipple's ponishments. Hokay sure, knock hyuself out hy guess."  
Mina arched an eyebrow. "Iz hyu ponishink der civilianz?" She asked, perhaps a bit too sharply. Sarge snorted, looking amused.  
"Hy gots to tell hyu a sekrit, Private. Der ceeveelianz iz gonna be more annoyed about beink moved den about der construct. Der construct dey ken HANDLE”  
Mina´s hackles rose. “In dot case iz not fair to ponish Mitica for sumtink dot doze no harm.”  
"Hyu know vot, hy´ve changed mine mind, hyu get to herd de ceeveelian vit Mitica, now move eet."

  
The civilians were indeed displeased at being moved, and Mina got to vent some of her anger at Sarge by snarling at them until they stopped being difficult.


	5. In Which There Is Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Subtitle: in which Rada realizes she was handed a baby jaeger who literally has learned nothing but how to stand on her own to train as a soldier, and goes to give her “mentor” a piece of her mind.

Mina woke up and was glad to find that she only felt about a quarter dead. Training was hell. As far as she could tell the point was to find just how far the newly made jägers could be pushed before they dropped. Or maybe Sarge just liked cursing them out, Mina was not entirely sure. To her relief, she was not doing any worse than her squad mates. Her mentors remarks had worked themselves under her skin, and stung every time she made a mistake. She was a civilian, a soft little townie who would never be a true jäger, she should never have been changed, teaching her was a waste of time. Some of the older jägerkin had been willing to answer her questions, or she would have been well and truly screwed, but it was still painfully obvious that Mina had never been a soldier before.

If there was one good thing she could say about her new CO it was that Sarge might question her intelligence, her ancestry, and sometimes her sanity, but never her right to be jägerkin. Not that it helped much.

 

What was worse was that she had no idea how jäger pack dynamics were meant to work. Her squad mates simply assumed she knew, with sometimes hilarious results. She had apparently been giving the impression of being stand-offish, to which Miticas brilliant and in no way potentially disastrous solution was to trip her into the jäger pile as she passed and then mark her up nicely. It did feel nice, but tripping her up like that was really just asking for a brawl. That was apparently an acceptable response. From now on the others included her in both play fights and sleeping piles, though rather more of the latter. Only Ilinca and Mitica really had the energy left to cause trouble after training.

 

And then there was Stefan. Stefan considered himself god's gift to jägerkin, which was a good thing because if they had paid for him, they would have demanded their money back. He was self absorbed, petty, and refused to cooperate with anyone who didn´t defer to him, which meant anyone except Boian, who for some reason seemed more than happy to be his whipping boy and guard dog. During the newest obstacle course, (which made Mina wonder if Sarge was perchance related to the castle,) he pushed it just a bit too far.

A moving wall of spikes threw Mina straight into the one she had just climbed, ripping her tunic and back open. Stefan laughed. "Hoy kitteh, dun hyu haf meece to chase? Let der varrirors deal vit dis hyez?" Boian snickered. Mina growled. Stupid superior little bastard. He looked just like her damnable mentor grinning like that. Who did he even think he was?

 

Boian threw himself in front of Stefan. Mina had her teeth at his throat when she was yanked off him and thrown into the nearest wall. She bounced back up and stopped in her tracks. Sarge looked positively incandescent with rage. This was not going to be fun.

"Vos nize knowink hyu Mina." Ilinca yelled. To everyone's surprise, including her own, she was ignored. Mina stood up straighter, though her tail was trying to wrap itself around her legs. Cringing was not going to help, and she'd be damned if she gave the woman the satisfaction.

"Vho der fuck vos hyu mentor?"

"Cristian. Green skin, light hair, corporal hy tink?"

"Hy´ll find heem." From the sound of it, Cristian would sorely regret being found. Or born. And that appeared to be it.

Uncomfortable silence descended. Boian was rubbing his throat and watching Mina as if she might explode at any moment. The others had subtly shifted to where they could take her down if she moved. She decided to sit down. That seemed to help.

"Ah...Hy´m sorreh about dot." Well that didn't sound inadequate at all or anything.

"Iz alright. Hy´ll live." He...actually looked like he meant it. Mina blinked.

"Goot, now vould hyu fine ladiez und gentlemen mind getting off hyur arses?" Everyone jumped and Mina scrambled to her feet. For the rest of the day Sarge kept them far too busy to talk or even think about what happened.

"Hokeh effervun ken leave bot Boian und Mina."

Sarge was smirking. It was not a friendly expression. "Hy bet hyu thought hy'd forgotten about hyu leetle show before.”

Stefan sauntered past them, looking smug. "Haf fun hyu two."

"Just for dot hyu ken schtay und help, sveethot. Der Master needs de green lab cleaned out." Mina already knew there wouldn't even be any experiments to fight.

 

There weren't, just an unholy mess of such proportions as only a spark could produce.

"Boian, if hyu vanna go hy´ll mek sure dot vun von´t tell, iz not fair hyu gotz to do diz."

"Iz not hyu fault either.

"Hyu ken do mine Mina" Stefan looked so pleased with his own cleverness, clearly there was nothing to do but break a beaker of something noxious over his head. Mina was sure no one would miss it.

"Hyu vill do hyu part or hy vill mek hyu scratch dis sheet off vit hyu ribs!"

It quickly became apparent why lab cleaning was a punishment detail for jägers rather than minions. Mina still hadn´t managed to get used to the way soap now stung in her nose, never mind the strange substance she was trying to remove from the lab bench, which was twisting the world sideways and making her eyes water. She could have happily spent her entire life not knowing that there was such a thing as a non-euclidian smell.

"God demn modder fuckink goat keesink BASTERD Sergeant!" she growled.

"Hy dun tink Ladiez ken be Basterdz?" Boian asked from waist deep in a vat. It made his voice echo.

"SHE ken. Hy know becawze she IZ. Iz not fair she mek HYU do diz."

"Iz not fair she mek ME do diz!" Stefan opined.

"Iz entirely fair," Mina snapped. "Hyu vere beink a vhiny leedle prick. Chust like right now."

"Vho iz hyu callink-"

Trouncing Stefan did not get the lab clean, but it did make Mina feel better. Not enough to forgive Sarge, but better.

 

It was late when they finished and Mina was finally free to go find Sarge and give her a piece of her mind.

She would most likely be in the main jägerhall by now. It was a large open room, liberally decorated with interesting weapons and trophies, or those with interesting stories attached, which served as the venue for rare formal occasions and much more frequent victory celebrations. Most of the time it was just a place to socialize.

At this time of night it was packed with off-duty jägerkin. Mina made her way to the part her regiment usually favored, looking around for Sarge.

 

Instead she nearly ran into her old mentor and had to duck behind someone large and scaly to avoid being seen. She looked around for Sarge, but when she found her Mina decided she had better stay right where she was. Sarge was furious.

"Vere is Corporal Cristian?"

A path opened between them, amid snickering and catcalls. Cristian had the presence of mind to look worried. He stood at attention and saluted.

"Yaz Sergeant?"

"Vot der fuck vere hyu doink der last seex month hyu complete eediot?"

"Uh.-

"No reelly, hy vant to know, how deed hyu manage to turn a green recruit eento a berserker vit her peck sense twisted? Vere hyu effen /tryink/ to train her, or vere hyu chust seetink around vit hyu thumb up hyu arse?"

Cristian bristled, ears still pinned back. "Iz not /mine/ fault-

By now the last of the surrounding jägers had given up on even pretending they weren´t listening.

"Ho ov cawze not." Sarge snarled. Somehow she managed to loom over Cristian even though she only reached his chin. "Hyu officerz should haf known better den to give hyu enny kind ov job dot teks tinkink, iz obvious hyu are out ov hyu debt een a puddle ov piss! Vell don´t vorry, hy´m goink to make sure hyu don´t haf to do ennytink more challengink den shovel sheet for next few centuries. Hyu´re lucky hy ken´t demote hyu enny further den dot! Hyu put mine recruit und mine entire squad een danger becawze hyu couldn´t be arsed to do hyu fuckink job!"

He growled. "Iz certenly not mine fault dot schtupid leetle ceeveelian vos unfit to be jägerkin!"

Their audience suddenly fell silent. It was the kind of silence that preceded catastrophe. Sarge swept his feet out from under him, then punched him for good measure.

"Deed hyu bekom a Heterodyne een der last five meenutes?"

"Vot?"

There was a brief scuffle which ended with Cristian on his back clutching an arm,  and Sarge looming over him.

"Becawze unless hyu deed, Iz NOT hyu place to decide vho iz und iz not fit to be jägerkin. Mebbe hy should get hyu demoted to recruit, seence der first time clearly deedn´t schtick! Mebbe by der feefth time eet´ll get eento hyu thick hed! Now hyu is goink to report to hyu superior for ponishment detail und hexplain vhy hyu got eet. Eef dey esk tell dem to tok to me."

Cristian swallowed.

"Yaz Sergeant." He fled.

 

Mina was about to do the same when the jäger she had been standing behind lazily rose and sauntered out of the way, smirking.

"Hy tink sumvun vants to tok to hyu Rada."

There was an edge of relief to the surrounding snickering this time.

"Iz dot zo?" Sarge sat and took a drag off her cigar. Her expression said louder than words that she was giving Mina enough rope to hang herself with.

"Yaz." Mina silently wished him straight to hell and drew herself up straighter, though she could feel her ears pinning themselves back all the way into her hair. Her tail arched up and quivered. "Seeink dot vaste ov a hat knocked on hees arse vos nize, bot hy don´t tink hyu haf eeny room to creetecize heem after puttink Boian on detail vit os. He deedn´t deserve dot."

"Don´t feel like keelink heem ennymore, do hyu?" Someone laughed, amid several "Awww"s.

"Hy neffer deed et all, he got een der vey-

"Und hyu vould haf gone right through heem. Now hyu von´t."

"Dot dozen´t mek eet right."

"Hy´m not here to be hyu friend keed."

"Vot der flamink HELL haz deez got to do vit me? Eetz fuckink Boian vho hyu ponished for MINE bloody goddemn fuckink fuck op!" About halfway through her rant Mina realized just who she was cursing out. She waited for the other shoe to drop, most likely on her head. Their audience was openly grinning. Sarge just took aother drag off her cigar as if they were discussing boots. Or the weather.

"Eet haz absolutely nottink to do vit Hyu, preencess. Hyu iz a squad. Hyu lif togedder und eef hyu fock op like dot een der field, hyu vill die together. Now hy em goink to overlook dez leetle conversation, chust deez vunce, seence..." She considered Mina for a moment, then shook her head. "Hyu iz dismissed."

 

Mina was very proud of the fact that she managed to salute and make her exit quietly, despite numerous catcalls and bets as to how far she would be getting her arse kicked. That she then broke two fingers trying to make a dent in the barracks wall was no one's business but her own.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for that subtitle goes to Adi. Also many thanks for editing help.


End file.
